Dating Bradford: Fireworks at Pride

What the hell does Gay Pride mean anyway? Long gone are the days when I didn't feel proud to be exactly who I am every day, so why the need to reaffirm that we aren't still living in shame? Can't we just name it National Gay Day and get a three-day weekend out of the deal? Don't people with real jobs get Martin Luther King Day off, and isn't everyone's freedom worth a paid holiday? For now, let's just unveil Gay Pride Day for what it appears to be -- a rapidly becoming commercialized semi-holiday with corporate-sponsored parade floats, inflated admissions to bars that are normally free and overpriced circuit-party tickets for people still using expensive designer drugs.

For me, Gay Pride Day -- like New Years Eve -- has become another excuse for having expectations of a fantastically memorable experience; one that hopefully involves romance, so I don't have to fight the crowd of shirtless and sweaty muscle boys alone until the fireworks happen and I can finally go home.

I try not to be cynical and callous because Gay Pride means so much to so many, but I seem to have misplaced my own personal meaning somewhere between heatstroke and alcoholism. In reality, I still manage to have fun every year, rollerblading scandalously clad in the parade with my costume designer friend Electric Bubble in his wild creations -- this year themed in gold. But sometimes it's like faking an orgasm; I just go through the motions, courting an elusive satisfaction that never comes.

On a superficial note, however, Gay Day is the one time of the year when I get applauded as I in-line glide through gridlocked city streets, in a gold thong with glitter on my ass, flapping six-foot golden wings while trying to keep my multi-tiered headdress from falling off.

Yes, it's hysterical, but this year I wanted to do it differently - maybe with a boyfriend. Someone to share not just the party with, but a celebration of something I could be proud of, like love and commitment. It hadn't panned out, but at least Bubble and I looked fabulous while posing for a thousand pictures for the bridge-and-tunnel lookiloos.

I kept asking people on the street what Gay Pride meant for them, thinking I might find deeper meaning from total strangers. The large-boned, dark-skinned transsexual sharing the dry spot with me under the awning during the third afternoon thunder shower said, through plumes of Parliament smoke, "This day is like any them all to me cuz I already has my pride, but lately I've just been meeting the most horriblest menz. Child, I just needed to get out the apartment and meet some new ones, cuz all them hormones is makin' me antsy, and theyz all horny and shit on Gay Pride. Know what I'm saying?"

On another rain break, I called my friend Matthew Link, editor-at-large for The Out Traveler magazine, for a quote. He said, "I'm driving through Tennessee -- just left Dollywood ... I have to leave town every year for Gay Pride. It's fun and all, but honestly -- maybe it's because I work for a gay company -- I just get gayed out."

A young lesbian on the subway with a beaded ponytail and yellow Nikes brought a little to the table when she said, "Gay Pride is a celebration where we can come together and enjoy the freedom that we have won. I mean, look how far we've come."

The same sentiments had died for me years ago, but I politely nodded so as not to kill her buzz. I mean, I do agree general acceptance of homosexuality has made great progress, and of course there is reason to acknowledge and celebrate this, but for me it's old news and no matter how you package it, celebrating single still sucks.

After a much-needed costume change into boy drag and sippy-cup refills of vodka, Bubble and I donned his neon-blue electroluminescent wire light-up cowboy hats -- with matching blinking vests -- and bladed over to the Pier Dance to catch the fireworks. Brazenly we breezed through the re-entry gates, skirting the $65 admission, just in time to catch this year's surprise guest, Jennifer Hudson == the American Idol Dream Girl -- on stage singing, "And I'm telling you, I'm not going ... "

I remembered that somewhere in the crowd was my Professor Hottie from Florida, whom I had been seeing all week while he was in town researching his next book, and with whom I wanted to hook up with post-fireworks for a few of our own sparks.

Just as I was thinking to text him, I found him by chance in a crowd of 5,000, standing right next to me. With mutual surprise we feverishly mashed lips, both glad to find the one person we really wanted to be with in this sea of gay male flesh, while Jennifer sang, "No no no no way I'm living without you." There we stayed, sucking face until Bubble tapped my shoulder saying, "You're missing the fireworks."

To which I replied, "Oh, no no no no way, I'm seeing my own fireworks."

There, at the end of that crowded pier, with my arms around my very own shirtless and sweaty muscle man, I rediscovered what pride meant for me. It wasn't about making a political statement, or chasing the tail of fun, it was about finding hope that the universe would eventually lead me to the man I'm supposed to be with -- just as it had led me to the professor -- at the right time. It was about gaining strength from this hope to keep me going through all our empty parties and meaningless madness.

Maybe my professor, leaving the next day for Florida, wasn't going to be my boyfriend right now, but he was a reminder that someday fate will land me in the lap of the man who will be.

As the fireworks crescendoed, I was filled with pride in myself at being able to face my cynicism and doubt until then and still find a way to enjoy the process.

This newfound pride is worth a thousand parades.

(Photo: Bradford Noble)